An attack last week against former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke in his Connecticut prison cell reflects “the mentality out there ... that people won’t rest until he is either given a life sentence or killed in prison,” his lead trial attorney said Thursday.
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Attorneys stressed the danger Van Dyke faces in custody — just days after prosecutors filed a legal petition before the state Supreme Court that, if successful, could significantly lengthen his sentence.
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Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery in the on-duty slaying of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. He was sentenced last month to 81 months in prison and, until last week, had been serving his time in isolation in an Illinois prison.
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His attorneys were told Feb. 5 that Van Dyke had been moved to Danbury Federal Correctional Institution in Connecticut, a low- to minimum-security facility. Two days later, shortly after he had been processed, several people attacked him in his cell, his attorneys said.

The federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed in an email Thursday that “an assault resulting in minor injuries” occurred Feb. 7 but declined to answer further questions, including whether Van Dyke was in the general population. The Illinois Department of Corrections confirmed that Van Dyke no longer is in its custody but would not say why.

The beating came to light this week after Van Dyke told his appellate attorneys. But much of the information Van Dyke’s trial attorneys cited Thursday came from an unnamed informant who works in the Connecticut prison, they said.

The prison employee sought out Van Dyke’s attorneys to give them details authorities had not, according to Tammy Wendt, another lawyer who defended Van Dyke at trial last year. Wendt expressed frustration that no one in a position of authority had informed them of the attack or answered basic questions about his safety.

Their crimes ranged from shoplifting to embezzlement to murder. Some of them molested kids and downloaded child pornography. Others beat their wives, girlfriends or children.

The one thing they had in common: a badge.

Thousands of California law enforcement officers have been convicted of a crime in the past decade, according to records released by a public agency that sets standards for officers in the Golden State.

The revelations are alarming, but the state’s top cop says Californians don’t have a right to see them. In fact, Attorney General Xavier Becerra warned two Berkeley-based reporters that simply possessing this never-before-publicly-released list of convicted cops is a violation of the law...

...The Berkeley journalists chose not to publish the entire list until they could spend more time reporting to avoid misidentifying people among the nearly 12,000 names in the documents, said John Temple, director of the Investigative Reporting Program.

Still, the details are stunning in a state where officials have fought for years to keep virtually any record of police misconduct a secret. And they come amid a larger battle playing out in courtrooms throughout the state over California’s new police transparency law, Senate Bill 1421.

The documents provide a rare glimpse at the volume of officer misconduct at a time of heightened interest over police accountability. The list includes cops who trafficked drugs, cops who stole money from their departments and even one who robbed a bank wearing a fake beard. Some sexually assaulted suspects. Others took bribes, filed false reports and committed perjury. A large number drove under the influence of drugs and alcohol — sometimes killing people on the road.

There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Not yet. The problem was that California allowed all of this information to be kept private. A bill was successfully passed last year to make this information public. Thus these police were able to hide behind the law. Now they can't and hopefully they'll be fired shortly. Why the supposed liberal AG is trying to still keep the information hidden is a mystery.

"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow

See I have often thought of creating an organization that simply advocates for reducing the taxpayer burden of the criminal justice system. This guy's story is a prime case of complete and total unethical use of taxpayer money.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra says Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet — the police officers who shot and killed Stephon Clark last March — will not face charges. The two officers fired on Clark, who was unarmed, after a foot chase that ended in his grandmother's backyard.

Clark was 22 years old. The circumstances around his death made national headlines and added another layer to an ongoing conversation about the police use of deadly force, particularly against unarmed black men. The officers shot Clark seven times, including three times in the back, the official autopsy found.

Becerra announced the findings of the state's independent criminal investigation into the police shooting death of Clark days after Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced she would not be filing criminal charges against the two police officers who killed Clark.
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With findings from the county and state inquiries now released, the Sacramento police department plans to use them as part of its internal review of the shooting.

"I assumed it was for construction, and there was no time," said Darbes, an Inwood resident. "So, I didn't know what time I would need to move my car by, so I went and parked in the local garage."

Darbes soon learned the "No Parking" signs were not for construction, but for the NYPD.

The street is home to Columbia University's athletic fields, and the NYPD was hosting its flag football championship there Sunday.

Members of the department took the spaces so they could park there for the game.

"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow

But Hastings’s story isn’t one of a rogue, aberrant cop so much as a glimpse into the police culture of Arkansas’s largest city. Disturbing as Hastings’s disciplinary record may be, other officers in the department have even thicker personnel files. In fact, many of the very officers who trained and supervised Hastings have had lengthy histories of misconduct — including domestic violence, lying, and the use of excessive force.

A review of LRPD personnel records, emails and court cases dating back to Hastings’s hiring in March 2007 suggests a department plagued by nepotism, cronyism and racism — both blatant and subtle. Internal investigations of officer misconduct can be sloppy and incomplete, and are often haphazardly conducted by officers with clear conflicts of interest. There appears to be little supervision at any level, whether by sergeants over beat cops, the high command over supervising officers, or city and elected officials over the department’s leadership. When officers have been fired — and it takes a lot to get fired — they are often able to appeal and win back their jobs, either in court or through the city’s Civil Service Commission, usually with the help of the police union...

...the repercussions of this case could go well beyond Little Rock. The Trump administration has made clear that the Justice Department will no longer investigate and oversee problem police agencies as the Obama administration did in places such as Ferguson, Baltimore and Chicago. Police reformers say that will make it more difficult to draw attention to problematic police agencies, much less push for systemic reform.

Despite all of this evidence, last month a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected the lawsuit from Moore’s family. The court ruled that the family had failed to demonstrate a pattern or practice of policies, deficient training, or insufficient discipline that made Hastings’s shooting of Moore foreseeable.

Two weeks after that ruling, Little Rock police officer Charles Starks fired his weapon into a moving car, killing the driver...

...There’s also yet another recent instance of an LRPD officer shooting into a moving vehicle — one that didn’t make it into the Moore family lawsuit or into my report last fall. This one involved an officer named Ralph Breshears. In July 2017, Breshears fired his gun into a moving car as it fled a Chick-fil-A drive-through. He claimed the vehicle, which had been commandeered by a shoplifting suspect, was driving directly toward him. But surveillance video clearly showed Breshears fired into the car as it drove away.

There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

"He said I smelled marijuana coming from you room. I was like, it's not me. I didn't have any marijuana, so leave me alone because I'm trying to sleep," Sousley said.

Sousley said a security guard at Citizens Memorial Hospital in Bolivar accused him of smoking marijuana.

Sousley has stage four pancreatic cancer. In a Facebook live video that's now gone viral, you hear Soulsey mention he had THC oil but took it out of the hospital.

Missourians voted to make medical marijuana legal in Missouri but the change hasn't happened yet.

Ultimately officers did find CBD oil, which is legal in the state of Missouri.

You can see police come into his hospital room in the video and begin to go through his things when he never gave them permission to do.

"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow

When I was driving uber yesterday, I picked up a guy that spent the night in jail after getting arrested for drunk in public (allegedly after 2 beers). No sobriety test, no breathalyzer, no blood test. And the kicker is...he is a sheriff! Is there no honor among thieves?

Tanya Weyker was hurt so badly, she couldn’t blow into a breath-testing device or perform field sobriety tests. But a Sheriff’s deputy arrested her for drunk driving anyway. And the County hung those charges over her head for nearly a year, even long after blood tests proved she was perfectly sober...

...“If Deputy Quiles hadn’t essentially blamed the accident on her,” Mishlove argues,” they never would’ve drawn her blood. They never would’ve arrested her.”

In his official report, Deputy Quiles wrote that he stopped at the stop sign and looked both ways before pulling out. He told a Milwaukee police officer that he never saw any headlights, even though Weyker’s Camry had lights that come on automatically.

“I knew I was innocent this whole time,” Weyker declared.

The truth might never have surfaced were it not for video from a nearby airport surveillance camera. It shows what investigators say is Deputy Quiles’ squad car traveling west on Hutsteiner Avenue, then continuing onto Howell without making a complete stop, as Quiles claimed in his report. The Sheriff’s Office knew about the video just two days after the crash. But no one told Weyker.

Instead, the County sent letters blaming her for the crash and threatening legal action if she didn’t pay for the damage...

...It wasn’t until ten months after the crash that internal investigators at the Sheriff’s Office interviewed Deputy Quiles. In an audio recording provided to FOX 6 News by Weyker’s attorney, an investigator asks Quiles what happened.

“I’ve been told I rolled the stop sign at Howell and Hutsteiner,” Quiles said. Simulation de rachat de crédit
Quiles said he hadn’t seen the video himself, but was told that a video existed. He then acknowledged that his earlier statement was wrong.

Internal Investigator “You believe that you probably did roll?”

Voice of Deputy Quiles “Yes. Yes, I do.”
Internal Investigator “And because of that, you believe you were at fault for this accident.”
Voice of Deputy Quiles “That’s correct.”

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Columbus Police Officer is facing federal charges of depriving victims of their Constitutional rights "by kidnapping the victims under the guise of an arrest and forcing them to engage in sex for their freedom." Andrew Mitchell, 55, was arrested at Columbus Division of Police headquarters Monday morning.

The charges were charged in federal court Monday afternoon. He faces three counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, two counts witness tampering, one count witness tampering, and one count of making false statements. "The conduct alleged in this indictment is shocking and revolting," FBI Special Agent Todd Wickerham said.

Mitchell is accused of kidnapping three different victims under the guise of an arrest, then taking them to another location and forcing them to engage in sexual acts in order to be released. According to the indictment, he did it to one victim at least twice. Federal investigators say they are still investigating, and they are asking anyone who may have been a victim or have any information about Officer Mitchell or possibly any other officers to come forward.

If found guilty, Mitchell could get life in prison for the charges of Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law, which is a charge that means he was using his position as a law enforcement officer to commit crimes and deny a victim constitutional rights. "That is a nightmarish breach of trust and that is a federal crime," U.S. Attorney Ben Glassman said in announcing the charges.

Mitchell is also accused of multiple counts of witness tampering, and making false statements during the investigation.

Mitchell, a 30-year veteran, is also under investigation for the shooting death of Donna Castleberry (also known as Donna Dalton) on August 23, 2018 during an alleged prostitution sting. The two were in Mitchell's vehicle at the time, and authorities say Castleberry stabbed him in the hand before Mitchell opened fire. Castleberry was not one of the victims outlined in the indictment.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability concluded that Sgt. Khalil Muhammad acted in an “objectively unreasonable” fashion yet initially recommended only a suspension of 90 days without pay.

COPA is a fucking joke. This guy did a driveby off duty off duty and killed a mentally disabled kid and he gets 90 days ( upper to 180 by the CPD to provide some cover). But they have "investigators" on every on-duty shooting second guessing POs and trying to get cases thrown out.

And despite the unjustified use of deadly force, no charges from Cook County SA.

Why aren't there protests like when Van Dyke got his "light" jail time?

The "code of silence" isn't defined by a blue line, it's 100% political.

" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General"No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." -Stigler's Law of Eponymy, discovered by Robert K. MertonMYT

"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow

Is it just me, or does anyone else hate the automatic stance most police officers take when dealing with anyone who questions them, even in the slightest. Their body language instantly changes to "Everything you say is shit, I'm only here tolerating you because I can't smash your face in with my nightstick in public" ... head tilted back, arms crossed, legs apart...

In a 2016 report, NBC Los Angeles detailed an ongoing sting operation conducted by Los Angeles authorities that has caught hundreds of rideshare drivers. "The Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation conduct four to 10 stings per month to catch so-called 'bandit taxi drivers,'" the outlet reported. "These bandits are described as people who illicitly pose as cab drivers, sidestepping regulators and taking cash fares, according to police."

NBC notes that the departments spend "about $800,000 annually on these sting operations and all of it is paid for by the taxi cab industry," leading to rideshare drivers "questioning the legality of the undercover operations."